"College has become the golden ticket off [the] hamster wheel. But this, too, has widened the demographic gap in upward mobility. Lower-income children typically struggle to keep up in school, falling well behind wealthier children on K-12 test scores, which hurts their chances of getting into college and earning a diploma. A student with high scores on eighth-grade standardized tests but whose family is poor (in the lowest-income quartile) had only a 29 percent chance of finishing college, the EPI study found. That was a lower chance than a student from the top of the income ladder with low test scores. In other words, a dumb, rich kid is more likely to get a college diploma than a smart, poor kid."

“The conclusion comes to us from an newly updated study by professors Peter Lindert of the University of California - Davis and Jeffrey Williamson of Harvard (University.) Scraping together data from an array of historical resources, the duo have written a fascinating exploration of early American incomes, arguing that, on the eve of the Revolutionary War, wealth was distributed more evenly across the 13 colonies than anywhere else in the world that we have record of.”

"In a time when the concern about growing income inequality has found outlets in the Occupy Wall Street protests and made its way onto the presidential campaign trail, this community doesn’t have to worry about the wage gap between its residents. The median income here is a comfortable $107,000 a year, according to analysis by U.S. Census Bureau."

"We as a nation are more indebted than we have ever been in the past – individually, and collectively. And it is not just because of the bail-outs of the financial, and auto sectors, or the “stimulus” money spent in 2008-09. We are addicted to a system that favors borrowing and spending, on easy credit, to drive economic growth. And that’s fine, so long as you make sure you can service both the principal and the interest payments that are inevitable."

"The recession was unlike any other during the post-war period — an era notably free of financial crises in the U.S.. And when you compare the current jobs picture with what happened during and after other financial crises around the world, it looks, if not good, then at least less bad."

"Researchers said that though they did not know why people felt happier after moving, it probably had to do with feeling safer and less stressed. Nearly three-quarters of the families who signed up for the program said they had done so to get away from violence in dangerous neighborhoods... Moving to a neighborhood that was less poor caused families that were making $20,000 a year to feel as happy as families making $33,000 a year, Professor Ludwig said."